Yusuf left home suddenly in his twelfth year to make a journey to the coast with his Uncle Aziz But his 'uncle' turns out to be a rich trader and Yusuf his bondsman, pawned to pay his father's debts From working in Aziz's store a great trading journey is organized, trade being the basis of Aziz's wealth, but inevitably it does not go as planned and neither Aziz's nor Yusuf's fortunes are made This is the story of a black boy coming of age and learning of his own inheritance of the corruption of African traditions by white colonialism and of African Islam meeting the rich pantheism of the interior